The science fiction and horror author Richard Matheson – whose novels and stories including I Am Legend and The Shrinking Man were adapted for the big screen and television – has died at the age of 87. A spokesman for the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films said Matheson died on Sunday in Los Angeles. The Writers Guild of America also announced Matheson's death.

Matheson, who was born in Allendale, New Jersey, in 1926 and raised in Brooklyn, New York, first began publishing science fiction and horror stories in the 1950s.

His 1954 horror novel I Am Legend is considered a landmark work in the genre, ushering in zombies and apocalyptic themes to post-second world war America. The novel was adapted three times as a film, most recently in 2007 as a big-budget thriller of the same name starring Will Smith, but earlier in 1964 as The Last Man on Earth and in 1971 as Omega Man.

Matheson also wrote the teleplay Nightmare at 20,000 Feet in 1963 for television series The Twilight Zone. The episode, which stars William Shatner, has become a much-referenced TV classic with a famous shot of a gremlin peering into the window of the plane from its wing.

Other movie adaptations have included Hell House and What Dreams May Come.

The author wrote the screenplay for 1971's Duel, one of director Stephen Spielberg's first films. He was credited as a writer on at least 80 film and television productions over his career spanning seven decades.